Bout of Books 9.0

Bout of Books is here again! And just in time to kick off the new year of reading. January is usually quite a slow reading month for me as it takes time to get momentum going. Plus this year I’m traveling to India about halfway through the month and will be gone for about 3 weeks. Other than reading during the 20 hours of flying, I doubt I’ll do that much reading while I’m there. So I’m definitely signing up to squeeze some books in before I go.

So this is going to be my Bout of Books post. It will multi-task as my sign-up post, goals, and I’ll keep it stuck to the top of my blog and update it as I go along instead of putting up a ton of different posts. That way I can review as I go and catch up on other posts I want to write.

Goals
My #1 goal is to read a lot and just have fun. It’ll be awesome to participate in some challenges and socialize on Twitter but if I don’t get to that it’s okay.

6 January: Day 1Total Pages Read: I’m not sure since I’m reading on my Kindle…but I did do some quick math based on total pages in a book and then the percentage read and my estimate is about 170 pages.Books Read From: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch and Odds On by Michael CrichtonBooks Finished:Odds On by Michael Crichton (I started this the day before Bout of Books started)Summary: Day 1 was pretty awesome. I got a lot of reading done, participated in two fun challenges (Book Buying Spree and Mad Libs), and really enjoyed the Twitter Chat. I’m also happy I finished a book because that gives me reading momentum, especially because Lies of Locke Lamora is soooo long and even though I’m enjoying it, it feels like I’m hardly making progress. Perhaps not an ideal book for a readathon but oh well.

7 January: Day 2Total Pages Read: Again, not sure…I made it another 6% through Locke Lamora and read 69% of The Machine which I started todayBooks Read From: The Lies of Locke Lamora and The MachineBooks Finished: None todaySummary: Overall I got quite a bit of reading done, considering I almost finished an entire book (The Machine) in one day. Locke Lamora is still moving pretty slowly and seems to be my most challenging book but my goal is to definitely finish it by the end of the readathon. I should be able to finish The Machine tomorrow so that’ll be awesome.

8 January: Day 3Total Pages Read: I read 8% of Locke Lamora and finally made it to the 50% mark!Books Read From: The Lies of Locke Lamora onlyBooks Finished: None since day 1Summary: I hardly got any reading done today. I’m glad I finally made it through half of Locke Lamora so I feel encouraged to keep going and that I’ll definitely finish it by the end of Bout of Books. Other than that, I was pretty busy the rest of the day after being snowed in for nearly three days. So I hope to get more done tomorrow.

9 January: Day 4Total Pages Read: I read the rest of The Machine and 20% in AllegiantBooks Read From: The Machine, AllegiantBooks Finished: The Machine!!!Summary: At the beginning of the day I felt a little overwhelmed because I hardly read anything the day before. Still, I had tons to do and wasn’t sure how much reading I’d get in. But I finished my errands early, my BF went to dinner with co-workers so I didn’t have to cook dinner and was home alone and squeezed in extra reading. Plus I ended up finishing a book which is always awesome. So overall it ended up being a great reading day!

10 January: Day 5Total Pages Read: 16% of AllegiantBooks Read From: Just 1, AllegiantBooks Finished: None todaySummary: Not much reading done today, but otherwise it was a great day, so it doesn’t really matter all that much.

11 January: Day 6Total Pages Read: I read an additional 39% of AllegiantBooks Read From: Only Allegiant againBooks Finished: None.Summary: Another busy day, only read from one book, but Allegiant is moving along quickly and I’m already 75% into it so I hope to finish it tomorrow. Why oh why did I pick such long books for this readathon?

12 January: Day 7Total Pages Read: The rest of AllegiantBooks Read From: Allegiant and a little bit more of The Lies of Locke LamoraBooks Finished: Allegiant!Summary: I got quite a bit of reading done. Most of it was focused on Allegiant because I knew I could finish that book and I wanted to get at least one more in. I read some more in Locke Lamora but it’s so long. Even though I read for quite a while, the meter only moved 1%. So I didn’t finish it as I had planned, but that’s okay with me.

Overall Summary
I finished 3 books! One I started before the readathon and two full books I read during the week. So I feel pretty great about that and my total books read so far this year is at 5. Plus I’m very close to finishing another book which is quite long, so I put a huge dent into that one during Bout of Books. I didn’t get to The Deaths of Tao but I’m excited to read it and will be diving into it soon.

I also participated in many fun challenges, two Twitter Chats, had so much fun, met lots of cool people, discovered new blogs, new books, and so much more. I can’t wait for the next Bout of Books and, if you’ve never participated, I hope you’ll consider doing so next time because it’s so much fun!